HYDERABAD, Jan 16: The Pakistan People’s Party leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Wednesday lashed out at Pakistan Muslim League’s hate campaign and said Benazir Bhutto was not a leader of a particular province or people she was a leader of all the Pakistanis.

Mr Khuhro, however, appreciated PML leaders Nadir Akmal Leghari and Aleem Adil Sheikh who had spoken against the vitriolic campaign.

Speaking to journalists at the residence of a supporter of the party Munir Randhawa in Defence Colony he said that the hate campaign aimed at creating rifts among people was a violation of the code of conduct issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

He said that the Punjabi settlers were as dear to Sindhis as any other local resident and the party was under obligation to protect them. There was hardly any family who did not weep over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, he said.

He said that PPP did not represent any particular community or class. Shaheed Z.A. Bhutto had fought for the people’s rights until the day he died and made democracy a cornerstone of the party, he said.

He said that Benazir Bhutto had returned to the country to rekindle a ray of hope among the disappointed youth but her opponents did not like it. The party would never speak against a particular community and did not approve of the spiteful slogans, which were raised, following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, he said.

He condemned registration of criminal cases against party workers and said the FIRs against 60,000 people had turned countless number of families against the government.

He said that the government should not have postponed the elections because as per constitutional provisions polls were to be held within 60 days of the expiry of assemblies.

The PPP would not leave the field open for its rivals. The party did not go for the option even in 1990 when its rival Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) was engaged in pre-poll rigging, he said.

He believed that no nominated government could solve people’s problems and called the present caretaker government a continuation of the outgoing government.

If the past government did nothing to maintain law and order then the caretaker government should have done it but its ministers were busy campaigning for their wives and family members while the former chief minister was still enjoying official protocol, he alleged.

The party’s demand for a United Nations-led probe was based on the fact that the UN Security Council had held a special meeting to express grief over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, he said.